


This Awful Man And His Appalling Taste In Music

by verybadhedgehog



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Almost constant bickering, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Masturbation, Swearing, large goth men, tech nerds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 10:11:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5963485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verybadhedgehog/pseuds/verybadhedgehog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brilliant research engineer Dr Dion Hux and weird sulky goth programmer Kylo Ren share an apartment in the Bay Area. They have clashing taste in music and personal style. There is bickering and sexual tension.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Awful Man And His Appalling Taste In Music

**Author's Note:**

  * For [robinasnyder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinasnyder/gifts).



> Prompt: AU with Kylo Ren only liking emo music, and Hux blasting current pop music to annoy the hell out of his roommate. 
> 
> I am going to continue this, as I'm well into it. They will totally bang in the next instalment. Hux will not be keen on Ren's sex playlist. And vice versa.
> 
> Hux's package of clothes comes from Need. I actually like Need – their marketing copy is 100% on point and their founder co-presents an amazingly surreal podcast.

In the Valley, rent is so damn high that even highly paid geniuses find themselves sharing apartments with other highly paid geniuses.

Thus it was that Dr Dion Hux, research engineer, came to find himself cohabiting in a two bedroom two bathroom apartment with Kylo Ren, Perl developer. At least, Kylo Ren’s official day job involved Perl and all its quasi-religious zealotry. What he actually did, and what he actually got up to in the corner of his darkened bedroom that he had set up as a workshop, were mysteries to his colleagues, and to Hux.

Kylo Ren’s programming discipline was considered by many to be an impenetrable wall of noise, and so was his musical taste. Industrial, goth, noisecore, first-wave emo, electronica, post-rock and psychedelic noise accompanied him wherever possible. Very little of it was contemporary – Ren seemed to enjoy being somewhat of a throwback. This included his style of dress. He had the appearance of a late 1990s or 2000s goth, all draping black cloth and black biker boots. On occasion his look tilted forwards to 2013 Health Goth, although this was usually a sign that he was on his way to the local martial arts gym, where he engaged in practices that Hux did not care to enquire about. Straightforward no-nonsense running was Dr Hux’s style of physical exertion. That and sex, when he got the chance, which was rarely.

Kylo Ren’s aesthetic was recherché and pretentious, but for the fact that he wasn’t really pretending to anything. He seemed to have a genuine uncomplicated enjoyment of the difficult music that he listened to through through the apartment’s wifi speaker system when he could and through earbuds when he couldn’t. Hux had, very early in their roommate-ship, asked why he didn’t have an expensive pair of headphones, as he seemed the sort of pretentious sod who would. Ren had looked pained and replied snippily, “because none of them are comfortable; I have tried many and they just don’t work. You have seen my ears, right?” and Hux had got the impression that he really had put his foot in it. Ren had a messy mop of wavy black hair, which hid his ears except on the occasion where they did poke through, and it became apparent that he had grown his hair to this length and volume specifically to hide the ears. Hux had congratulated himself on getting the relationship off to a storming start.

***

On the evening of Monday the 2nd, Hux returned from his work in a secret location away from his company’s main campus, doing secret things that he couldn’t tell anyone about, although it was public knowledge that he was an expert in advanced energy storage and battery technology and had previously worked for a manufacturer of electric vehicles. There was a smell of cooking in the air, accompanied by a cold, discordant and arrhythmical series of noises.

“Hey, Hux! How was your day on Project Titan? Make any cool electric car breakthroughs?” Kylo Ren’s mocking tones added to the unpleasant chill of the music.

“Fuck off, Ren. What is this awful din anyway.”

“This is Autechre. I’ve explained Autechre to you before. It’s not a din, it’s ambient. This is their 2001 album Confield, which is maybe a little less accessible than Amber, which I played you that time and I thought you liked.”

“It all sounds the bloody same to me. Can’t we have some proper music on, something I can relax to.”

“Relax? Relax? To your pop music? Unlikely.”

“I’m going to put Taylor Swift on.”

“You are not.”

Hux took out his phone, unlocked it, and tapped at it. The sound of Ms Swift’s 1989 came from the phone’s speaker, and then, after a couple more taps, from the speaker in the kitchen.

“Fuck you, Hux. I’m making dinner here, enough for both of us, and this is how you repay me?”

“My name’s on the lease, you twat.”

“Ugh, this is awful. Music by numbers, with this excessive reverb that everyone puts on everything these days.”

Hux didn’t care. He was singing along and fetching himself a beer out of the fridge.

“Oh my god, look at that face, you look like my next mistake” sang Taylor Swift, accompanied by Dr Dion Hux. Dr Hux took a sneaky look at Kylo Ren’s face in profile as Ren poked about with his saucepan of chickpeas and spinach. It was a striking face. Ren was not, as per Ms Swift, “a nightmare dressed like a daydream” but was more like a nightmare dressed as a nightmare. His face was something, though. The lines of his long nose and the sharp angle of his jaw made Hux think of a greyhound, but that resemblance stopped where the broad, powerful shoulders and thick muscular arms started. Oh, this was no good. Hux couldn’t stand around ogling his annoying roommate. He did not need the complication in his life, and besides, what would one actually do with a massive shambling goth? He could think of a few things actually, although there’d have to be none of the hideous music going on to put him off his… NO. _No. Stop this now, do not go down that path and do not drool over the man while he’s making dinner; that is creepy behaviour._

Hux took another swig of beer. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Kylo picked up a box of couscous. “Make this, exactly as the instructions say. You’re an engineer: I can trust you with that.”

“How much?”

“The amount it says for two people, which is the amount it says. R-T-F-M.”

Hux looked at the back of the box, which was entirely in French, with some helpful diagrams. “I need a measuring cup or a jug to measure 250ml”.

“In the drawer.”

Hux put the kettle on to boil. He still hadn’t quite got used to how much slower kettles boiled in the States than they did back at home, where the domestic voltage was a proper grown-up 230V. He measured out couscous into a bowl, waited for the kettle to boil, and continued eyeing up his roommate. _Lovely hair. Looks so soft. Imagine taking a handful of that. He’s awful, but he’s the silky kind of awful. The what? Get a bloody grip, man. Imagine clinging on to those big broad shoulders, though. I’d just hang off him like wisteria growing on an old building… oh, fuck, the kettle._

They ate. Kylo kept giving pained looks to the speaker, as if it were personally responsible for the Taylor Swift hell he found himself in.

“You know what your problem is, Hux?

“No, but I have the impression you’re about to tell me”

“You think you’re special because you, a man, listen to Taylor Swift. You think you’re not like all the other nerd boys. You think you’re being all,” and here he did air quotes and narrowed his eyes, “ ‘transgressive’ by listening to what you think is young girl’s music, right?”

“Well it is a bit different, and it is quite liberating for men to identify as listening to music traditionally identified as feminine. It’s partly a queer thing, anyway…”

Kylo didn’t finish his mouthful of chickpeas before starting to talk through them. Hux was disgusted. “You think you’re not like all the other nerd boys," Kylo said, through his food. "You could throw a stone anywhere in this shit hole and hit a nerd boy listening to Tay Tay. Thirty year old male programmers probably outnumber thirteen year old girls in the Swiftie fandom. You are not special. You are exactly like everyone else.”

“And you’re not a stereotype? With your band T shirts and your long coat and your boots and your hair?”

Kylo shrugged, a little over dramatically. “I like what I like. You, on the other hand, you’re the poseur. And you’re the one following the herd.”

“How can those things both be true? Contradiction in terms.”

“It isn’t. You’re following the herd. You like things because you think you should like them, because the rest of your stupid in-group likes them. Same way every tech podcast you listen to talks about the same topics in exactly the same way and gets stupid mass delusions about what fucking brand of headphones to buy and whether to panic about how many ports there are on a MacBook.”

“Harsh.”

“My other assertion is that you are a poseur. And you are.” Kylo leaned towards Hux, fixing him with an intense and malicious stare and as if that wasn’t enough, jabbing a long bony finger at him. “You like this shit because you think you should. You aren’t engaging with it. You call me pretentious, but I genuinely fucking like the music you call ‘unlistenable’ because it speaks to me, in a way that this over processed same-y bullshit doesn’t.”

“Wow. Finished?”

“I guess so.” Kylo stood up and took the dirty plates to the sink.

“Good. I have only two things to say. Firstly, how fucking dare you presume to tell me what I like and what I’m only pretending to like. Very bad move. Seriously not good. Secondly, how old are you? You must be pushing thirty. Try to act like it, and not a bitchy goth teenager. Now go and fuck yourself.”

Hux took himself to bed, seething. He undressed in anger, and showered with bitterness. He still thought Kylo Ren was the most arrogant, up-himself, rudest piece of shit he had the misfortune to know. He still thought he was the most absurdly awkwardly beautiful man he had the misfortune to know. Neither of those things were fair by themselves. Together they were a bloody curse. Work was difficult enough without home life having to be difficult as well. He stood under the shower and beat his fists on the tiles. Fuck you, Kylo Ren. Fuck you.

_I would really like to fuck you… NO. We cannot do this._

***

Hux carried his bag of groceries to his car, where his mood took a very sudden downturn. Some asshole, some piece of shit had driven into his car in the parking lot, and left a gaping dent in a side panel. They must have been going at a fair pace to make this much mess.

“Fuck you, you piece of shit!” he shouted at the world. “These don’t bash out, you know! They’re carbon fibre!” This was not good. He’d have to get the car to a BMW repair shop and have the whole panel replaced. He sighed, put the bags of groceries in the boot, the trunk, whatever these damn people who don’t know how to bloody drive call the fucking thing, and called the BMW i3 owners support line to request an urgent repair.

So. Thursday. Car in repair shop. He’d have to organise a ride to work for Thursday morning, or a ride to near work if he had to keep up this ridiculous secrecy around his project that extended even to where the development and testing took place (it was at the facility where everyone in the Valley knew damn well that the secret car project was being developed and tested). And he’d have to get a ride home, and this was awkward and he hated not being in control. He mentally listed his colleagues who lived nearby and might possibly, conceivably, give him a ride.  Tanveer would be taking his kids to school and Hux didn’t want to get in the way of family life if he could avoid it. Pavel was on a business trip in Germany. Sigrid would be happy to give him a ride. On her motorbike. Why couldn’t she have a car like a regular person? He messaged her, on iMessage and in the team Slack channel. “Sigrid can you give me a ride to and from work Thursday car is in shop.” No response. “Sigrid Phasma please please please do me a solid favour, I will make it up to you ten times over, please.” No response. Shit. He was going to have to ask Ren to give him a ride to work.

He came through the door to the accompaniment of some extremely loud and distressingly distorted guitar. “Ren!” he called. “Kylo Ren, can you hear me above this noise?” No response. “Ren, you big-nosed goth TWAT, can you fucking HEAR ME?” The volume of the music turned right down and Kylo Ren _appeared_ next to him, as if he’d condensed out of the San Francisco fog. How did he do that, the creepy bastard?

“There’s no need to be mean about my face,” Kylo said, pouting. “I was listening to Keiji Haino. I know you don’t like Keiji Haino, but I wasn’t expecting you home so early.”

Ah, fuck. Hux hadn’t meant to be mean about Kylo’s face. He liked it. He had been trying to make out that he didn’t like it so much in the way that people say schoolboys pull the pigtails of girls they like.  “I thought if I insulted you, you’d appear. And you did. Like magic. Well done.” The pigtail trick never works. Hux knew fine well it never worked. He used to know how to flirt, he swore he did; back when he was a grown man, before he had regressed to the this pathetic state.

“What do you want?” Kylo asked, standing far too close to Hux.

“Erm, this is embarrassing, but would you be able to give me a ride to work tomorrow? In your car?”

Kylo Ren laughed out loud. “What happened, is your car broken? Couldn’t you invent a self-driving tea trolley in time to get you to work?”

“Shut up. Stop taking the piss.”

“I love your quaint English phrases,” Kylo said, with more sarcasm and contempt than Hux thought he deserved.

“Could you, though? I asked a work colleague to give me a ride, and she hasn’t got back to me, so you may not need to, but you might. Believe me, I would far rather not have to ask.”

“Yeah, OK. I’d rather not have to do it, but if I have to, I can do it.”

“It’s not as if I want to be seen in your antique Mercedes.”

“It’s a classic car! I thought you liked it. I thought you specifically said you like it.”

“Yes, but. It’s not practical.” Hux set his features into a shape he used at work when he was Very Carefully Trying To Be Reasonable. “It’s very good looking, but it’s not practical or suitable. For a bloody start, it’s so old that it’s exempt from smog testing. Which means it must be emitting a crap-ton of shite. And the fuel economy, I can barely start to think about it. Which means, you needlessly strange Perl mystic, that I don’t want to be seen getting out of it anywhere near the place where I make the next generation energy containment matrix for the revolutionary electric vehicle of the future.”

“I thought you weren’t allowed to talk about that.”

Hux made an effort to keep his face entirely motionless apart from a few blinks. His eye actually twitched a bit, and his lip curled very slightly. “I am going,” he said, “to kill you one day.” He turned on his heel and marched to his bedroom.

“I’ll kill you first,” called Kylo Ren after him.

“You probably will. By setting the apartment on fire with your fucking welding!”

“I haven’t done any welding since Christmas.”

Hux stomped back out into the hallway. “That, you lying fucker, is a lie. I know you were at it in January. I see the flashes of light from under your door. I hear the sounds.”

Every speaker in the house started playing a Justin Bieber song. “You’re so indecisive, what I’m saying,” went the song. “Don’t know if you’re happy or complaining”. _I’m usually complaining. About this shitbastard_. “Don’t want for us to end, where do I start” _What us. Ugh._

“I hate you!”  yelled Kylo from his own room. “I hate Justin Bieber, but I hate you more. I hate you in a real, binding, and personal way!”

_What a child. What a bloody child._

***

On Thursday morning, Hux got ready early, to the accompaniment of Rihanna. Kylo Ren stood by the living room window and sulked. He taunted Hux. “This is how facile you are. You’re going to work, and you’re listening to a song called Work. It’s pathetic. Do you have songs for everything you do? Is there a One Direction song called Taking A Shit that I’ll get to hear one day if I’m really unlucky?”

Hux ate his scrambled eggs and said nothing. Rising to the bait would not happen today.

Ren called again, and this time it needed his attention. “Hux! Someone is revving a Ducati outside.”

“Shit, that’s my ride.”

“No, wait, they’re coming this way. Wait, that’s your ride? You, on the back of that bike? This I have to see.”

Hux zipped up his bomber jacket over his shirt, carefully tied a linen scarf around his neck, and cursed Kylo Ren for taking such obvious glee at his potential embarrassment.

The door buzzer went.

“Tell her I’ll be one minute”

“Oh, I already buzzed her in.” The fucker.

There was a knock at the door and Hux raced Kylo to be the one to answer it, losing by half a yard. Trying to wrestle Kylo away from the door would have been undignified and futile.

“Oh, hi.”

What. The Fuck.

“Do you two know each other?” asked Hux.

“Not really,” said Sigrid Phasma, leaning on the door frame, clutching a chromed motorcycle helmet under one arm and dangling a plain black one from the other. “We go to the same gym sometimes. Your roomie is usually doing his kendo practice, but sometimes we kick box.”

Kylo’s grin was malicious. “I recognised the helmet the instant I saw you pull up.”

Hux gritted his teeth, hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders and left with Phasma.

“I didn’t know he was your roommate. You only said your roommate was some weird goth Perl dude with awful taste in music.”

“He is. Weird, annoying as hell, incredibly arrogant, his taste in music is so far beyond the bounds of reason I swear he pretends to like it deliberately to piss me off, he has dangerous hobbies and I don’t know why I don’t kick him out…”

“You’re into him aren’t you?”

“Yes. God yes.”

“Well. Well then. Switch your intercom on, we can talk while we ride.”

Phasma took off down the back streets, taking a route Hux didn’t recognise. This did not bother him, as she was an expert in routing algorithms and traffic mapping.

“He is hot as hell, I give you that. And let me tell you this: the way he moves is amazing. Poetry.”

“Wow. At home he shambles about like a heap of shite.”

“You haven’t seen him with a sword in his hand.”

“That sounds hot.”

“It is. He isn’t built to my specifications if you know what I mean, but I bet he would be very good in bed. The way he moves, how intense he is. All signs point to it.”

“Can we change the subject? I’m holding on to the back of you very tightly and this is on the verge of being very embarrassing for both of us”

Phasma laughed. “Ha! Don’t worry about it, man. I know it’s not for me, because you are the gayest man I know, and also I can’t feel it through the padding in my leathers.” 

Hux wanted to die.

***

On Friday, Hux had his car back. By 3pm, there was nothing to actually urgently do at the office. His lab techs had set off the processes they needed to run overnight. He had simulations running, and they could be left until Monday. He was in charge of his team, and he could leave early if he wanted. If anyone from the main campus needed him, they could message him. So he went home. 

He was not expecting to find his roommate half dressed and fast asleep on the living room couch. He had already been wondering exactly what Kylo Ren’s working hours were – he usually left after Hux, if, come to think of it, he left at all. Sometimes he left early. Hux was more usually home late. Today, at 4pm, Ren was not at work, not at his gym, not at home working, not at home engaged in one of his mysterious hobbies, but at home sleeping. In the living room. Dressed only in boxer shorts and a faded Fugazi T shirt. Surrounded by Lindor wrappers.

Hux slipped off his shoes and padded a little closer to the couch. Ren didn’t move. He was breathing deeply. Hux felt his own heart pounding. He surveyed the scene, gripped by the very strong conviction that he should absolutely not be doing this. Nice responsible grown up engineers do not spy on their sleeping roommates. They do not stare at their roommate’s feet, tucked together on the couch cushions, and marvel at the beauty of their long toes. They do not imagine running their fingers through their roommate’s leg hair. They do not bite their lip as they admire the curve of their roommate’s buttocks. They do not imagine placing their hands on those buttocks and pulling them apart. They do not imagine the muscles and the skin hidden beneath their roommate’s soft faded band T shirt, and they do not breathe heavily as they imagine the feel of the soft worn cotton under their hands, warmed by the heat of the body beneath. They do not gaze in awe at the striking beautiful face of their roommate softened by sleep, and they do not want to lick the crumbs of chocolate from the lips of their roommate. They do not want to touch the soft black hair of their roommate and they do not find themselves stepping silently close enough to reach out a hand and touch.

It was so, so silky.

Hux bit his lip hard and looked down in horror and amazement at his hand, which was very gently stroking a piece of Kylo Ren’s hair between thumb and fingers. He had unconsciously chosen a lock of hair laying across the couch cushion, so he wasn’t actually touching Ren’s head, and if he backed away now, he would get away with it. He lifted his hand and backed away as if he was backing away from an unexploded bomb. 

Hux stayed in stealth mode to close his door as quietly as possible.  He unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his jeans, sat on his bad and slipped his hand into his boxer briefs. It was inevitable, what he was doing. He ran his hand up and down his shaft, contemplating the absurdly beautiful body that lay two rooms away, imagining collapsing onto it, into it. _Oh fuck_. Hux fell back onto his pillows, stroking himself in earnest now. He imagined Ren’s long fingered hands on him, then that broad, slack, wet mouth taking him, that silky hair falling against his thighs. He’d take a handful of it, and pull gently, and Ren would open his eyes and look at him: Ren sucking him, cheeks hollow with it, while making intense eye contact. _Oh fuck, oh fucking hell_. A stifled moan escaped Hux’s lips. He needed to be quiet, but he also felt like rolling over and thrusting vigorously against his bed while screaming Kylo’s name into a pillow. He made the effort to stay quiet. The image of him fucking Ren’s mouth while staring into those intense burning eyes pushed him closer to the edge and then threw him right over it. He came with a strangled “hnnnn”, which he hoped Ren hadn’t heard. Then he caught himself wishing Ren had heard it. He reached for a tissue to clean himself up, then lay back on the bed, breathing in deep sighs, somewhat euphoric. After a couple of minutes, he buttoned himself back up and went to wash his hands.

The door buzzer sounded. If this was the package Hux was expecting, it wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow. He ran for the door, almost colliding with Kylo Ren on the way. 

“I didn’t hear you come in.” Kylo’s surprise sounded genuine.

“Oh.”

“I was asleep on the couch. You didn’t put any of your awful music on.” 

Hux buzzed the courier in, and Kylo continued, “You didn’t molest me in my sleep, I take it. I suppose I would have woken up. Although it is by no means certain.”

Hux signed for a large package, and opened it. Inside were two shoe boxes and four items of clothing in clear plastic. He unwrapped one of the plastic bags: a pair of narrow legged navy blue chinos, and another, a shirt in a dark shade of chambray weave.

“Ah, the uniform of your tribe.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, at least I’m not wearing basic khaki Dockers and a polo shirt”

“No, but this is a uniform, every bit as much as mine is.” With weary contempt, Kylo continued. “You send off to this _merchant_ with his _curated collections_ of clothes for ‘ _the modern gentleman_ ’ and you buy your chambray shirts and your slightly nicer chinos than the next tech guy wears, and you’re no better than I am with my band T shirts and my jacket, and the coat you don’t like.”

“I like the jacket you wear. The twill one. It’s a very nice look.”

“I shall get rid of it immediately.”

“No need to be so difficult. I shall make you sit and listen to Little Mix again if you don’t stop being an arse.” Hux decided to do something slightly daring; something that could backfire, or at least get him mocked. He took off his T shirt and threw it down on the couch, and unbuttoned the new shirt to try it on.

_Let’s see if he looks at me. Let’s see his reaction to me undressing in front of him._

He was pretty sure that Ren had looked him up and down, and hadn’t looked away. Without staring back, it was hard to tell. There had been no comments about how comparatively skinny Hux was, which either meant something, or didn’t mean the opposite. He buttoned the shirt up.

“Nice.”

“Really?”

“You look nice. I mean, it suits you.” That was something. There was something in the tone of voice there. Maybe. Then Kylo Ren suddenly rolled his eyes, sighed, and looked at his watch. “Got a call from my boss. Need to take it,” and he vanished back into his room and shut the door behind him.

Hux had an idea. He found a pad of post-it notes and a pen. “Kylo, this (the scarf) is for you. A gift. Dion Hux. xx,” and immediately regretted the kisses. He found the package with the grey herringbone weave scarf he’d originally bought for himself, propped it up against Kylo's door, and stuck the post-it note on the door. This might be rather a smooth move.

Twenty minutes later, after tidying up the chocolate wrappers in the living room to the joyous sounds of Bruno Mars, he got a text from Kylo. “You look like a cute little noodle with your shirt off.” He wasn’t sure if he’d been insulted, or if he’d just pulled. Normally, he’d say he’d pulled: this one was in the bag, raise the rainbow flag and let the shagging commence. But Kylo Ren was difficult to read, deliberately, perversely difficult to read, and on occasion naturally and unintentionally difficult to read. Hux was very close to texting back, “if I am a noodle should I not be covered in salty broth and swallowed whole” or even, given that Ren sometimes seemed to be slow on the uptake, “WHEN are you going to FUCK me you HORRENDOUS man,” but wisely resisted. “Thank you, you horrible bastard” seemed more fitting. The reply he got was “I have to go to Berkeley to see a man about a laser.” As Hux considered the implications of this non-sequitur, he heard drawers opening and closing in Ren’s room. Then a door opening, and the sound of a package being ripped open. Hux’s stomach tightened and he considered and reconsidered the stupid xx kisses he’d put on the note. 

Ren strode through to the front door as if he were going into battle. On his back, a black rucksack. Around his neck, the gray herringbone scarf. Ah. Well, then. He left and slammed the door behind him without a word. Not even a sarcastic one. _Damn this man all the way to hell._

Four hours later, Hux received three texts. “Thank you for the scarf. I like it.” Then, “I still hate you a lot.” Finally, “Kiss kiss.”

_Damn him all the way around hell, several laps of hell, the bastard. He either knows and he’s deliberately making it worse or he’s just being an arse for the sake of being an arse. I hate him and if I don’t get my hands on him I. WILL. DIE._


End file.
